He slid his hands under her shift and touched the top of her hose. “Now,” he said. “Let us begin.”
“Begin what?”
“First, let’s talk about that barn and why you followed me in there.”
16
“I’ll have to have a new shift made for you.” Hugh ran his fingers down Edlyn’s belly. She liked that, he knew. She said it felt like a trickle of water, and when he did it right, her stomach collapsed. He stared in satisfaction.
“Why?”
She sounded drowsy, just as if she hadn’t spent the entire evening and all of the night in bed, and that warm drowsiness made him lean forward and kiss her. She rubbed his shoulders with her hands—he’d freed them long ago—and he stretched with pleasure. He liked her to touch him, but he liked to torment her by making love to her when she was tied, too. It had been a most enlightening, a most enjoyable, experience, although she’d proved unusually intractable.
“Because I cut the other shift off.”
“I have another. In fact, I have several others.”
“Oh. The ones I bought you at the abbey.”
“Nay.”
She hadn’t said she loved him yet. She hadn’t even admitted to loving him when they were both growing up at George’s Cross. Yet while wrapped in the passion of the night, he’d become resigned. Trying to convince her to say it was almost as much fun as hearing her say it.
She stretched and pulled the covers up. “I’m hungry”
“Me, too.”
He rubbed his legs against hers. She had loved him when she was a girl, and that made sense. All the village girls had doted on him, and more than one noblewoman had lured him to her bed. And she must love him still, for he’d not changed much. If anything, his body was stronger, and other women said the scars on his face added character. He still lived to win, and if his focus had changed from winning a fortune to winning a woman…well, that was what men did.
He thought about the shifts again, then frowned. “What do you mean nay?”
“I don’t think I got any more shifts from the nuns, but I got several from Richard’s men.”
He sat up, contentment flying away with the covers. “From Richard’s men? Richard of Wiltshire?”
She made a soft sound of complaint and tried to retrieve the furs. He stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“What do you mean, Richard’s men gave you shifts?”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, then chuckled and touched his cheek. “There’s no reason to be jealous. It wasn’t just shifts. They gave me everything. They gave me fans and gloves and rings and the cutest gold toy ball with a bell in it. I don’t know who they stole that from, but it must have been someone very wealthy.”
A great up-welling of some emotion, he didn’t know what, made him ask sharply, “Why did they give you gifts?”
“They claimed it was gratitude for the story, but I think partly it was because I talked to them as if they were normal men rather than just outlaws.” She sat up, raised her knees, and wrapped her arms around them. “Oh, and I gave the sick men tonics and patted them on the cheek and promised to pray for them.”
Hugh didn’t even have to think before he said it. “I want you to send it all back.”
“What?”
He didn’t like the way she was staring at him, as if he were being unreasonable, when in fact some louts had blatantly usurped his responsibilities. He jumped off the bed and padded toward his trunk. “I want you to send everything back. Everything that they gave you.”
“I can’t do that!” She sounded uncertain, as if she didn’t understand his mood. “They’d be hurt.”
“Hurt? They’re a bunch of thieves.” He flung open the trunk and dug through his clothing.
“Hugh.” She took an audible breath. “I know what I have is stolen, and mayhap that makes it tainted, but the poor women who lost their possessions will never get them back. Some of that stuff had been hidden away in the trunks for years. The linen was yellow in the creases, and the men were blowing dust off the shoes!”
He dressed as rapidly as he could. He didn’t want to talk about it. “Send…it…back.”
“I’ll tell you what.” She was coaxing him, trying to make him see sense. “I’ll send monies to the abbey to offset the sin of owning stolen goods.”
He didn’t want to see sense. She had gone from owning nothing just two days before to owning more than her heart desired.
He hadn’t planned it this way. He’d wanted a wife thoroughly bound to him, a woman who knew that by advancing his cause she advanced her own. When Edlyn came back into his life, he’d told himself she was the one.
Setting his boot on the floor, he stomped his foot into it, then grabbed the edges and pulled it all the way up.
Perhaps he’d been foolish. He’d ignored the fact Edlyn had managed to survive—nay, thrive—in conditions that would have ground most women into the dirt. He’d pretended he didn’t notice her competence, her defiance, her tenacity. He’d assured himself that she had found her way to the abbey with the grace of God, that Wharton had been directed to bring Hugh there through God’s direction, and that their union had been part of a heavenly plan. God wouldn’t have given him an inappropriate woman.
He set his other boot on the floor and slammed his foot toward the gaping hole.
Would He?
Hugh didn’t hit the boot squarely. The sole skidded away and stumbled sideways.
“Are you hurt?” Edlyn walked toward him, trailing a woolen blanket.
He glanced at her. Her dimples shone, one in each cheek, like swirls in thick cream. Her right leg stuck out through the parting in the blanket, and her calf flexed in a way that reminded him of how she clasped his hips when he…
That was just what he needed right now. Another cockstand.
He put out his hand in a gesture that brought her to a halt and, in an aggravated tone, said, “I can put on my own boot.”
She pursed her lips in that exasperated manner that so irritated him and said, “I think I’ll get dressed now.”
As if that would help.
He grabbed the edge of the boot and held it this time, and his foot slid in.
The trouble was, with Edlyn he’d wanted to give her everything. He wanted to be the one to give her pleasure. He didn’t want her lavishing her smiles on other men. He certainly didn’t need to know that she could charm the plunder out of an outlaw. For if she could survive on her own, what need did she have for him?
“Are you going to put that on?” she asked.
She sounded only mildly curious, but he realized he’d been standing there, clutching his mantle and staring at it.
“It goes over your shoulders,” she said helpfully. Fully dressed, she stood before him, feet apart, arms akimbo. “So. Do I have to insult my friends and return those gifts?”
His mantle swirled as he swung it over his shoulders. “Keep them.” He walked toward the door, determined to ignore her, then walked right back. “I just want to know one thing.” He held up his index finger. “Did you truly love me when you were young?”
She stared at the finger with a mutinous expression, then looked into his face. A little smile tilted her lips. “Aye. Aye, I did.”
“Then you can damn well learn to do it again.”
“Is the kitchen not to your satisfaction, my lady?” Neda asked in a tremulous voice.
“Aye, aye, it’s wonderful. One of the best I’ve ever seen.” Edlyn stared with discontent around the kitchen hut with its large fire pit, its clean utensils, its expert cook. “I just had forgotten how pork-brained and stubborn men are.”
The cook, a large, brawny man, looked horrified, and Neda said, “That’s a difficult thing to forget. Are we talking about any man…in particular?”
Her delicate pause made Edlyn realize the cook’s discomfort, and with an effort, she smiled at him. “The kitchen is clearly the home of an artist.”
He sighed with
relief, and Edlyn told Neda, “I was speaking of husbands in particular.”
“The cook is roasting an ox for the celebration of your coming.” Neda pushed Edlyn forward with one hand on her back. “Would you like to approve the menu?”
Edlyn didn’t care. The food thus far had been excellent, but the kitchen crew stood lined up for her inspection and she recognized their need to be greeted and given the approval of the new countess. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done this before, although never under the guidance of such an expert as the steward’s wife.
She greeted every turnspit and learned every name, and when they left to walk across the bailey to the cow barn, Neda said, “You’ve charmed them forever, my lady. They’ll serve you gladly.”
“That is the idea,” Edlyn said impatiently, then returned to the subject that occupied her mind exclusively. “I’ve been living in an abbey. I’ve hardly seen a man for a year, and then only monks.”
Neda adjusted her cloak against the rain. “I see your difficulty. Not seeing any but monks for a year, one would forget what men are truly like, for by the saints, I’ve never met a monk I considered a normal man.”
“Normal?” Edlyn didn’t like that word. “They’re normal.”
Neda said hastily, “They’re holy! They’re great men. They perform a wonderful service. But…” She opened the door to the barn and the milkmaid bustled up to them. “Greetings, Judith, this is our new lady who has come to inspect our milk cows.”
Edlyn didn’t want to inspect cows. She wanted to hear what Neda had to say about monks. Instead she had to run her hands over each cow’s hide and look in every scrubbed wooden bucket.
But as soon as she and Neda stepped out of the barn, she stopped and said, “But what?”
“I’m not trying to offend you, my lady. I’m sure you have many monks of whom you are quite fond. I have an uncle who is a monk and a brother, too, and I adore them.”
“But?” Edlyn insisted.
“I’ve lost them both. They’re not dead, but they’ve suffered to become one with God. They’re good monks—as they should be—and they have nothing left over to care for me.” Neda stared across the bailey. The rain dripped off the barn’s thatch roof and splashed at their feet, and she backed up until her spine rested flat against the wall. “I am selfish, but I remember how close my brother and I were when we were children, and sometimes I want him back.”
“If your brother had become a knight, you wouldn’t have him, either. He’d probably be dead.”
“As God wills.” Neda tucked her hands into her sleeves. “But maybe he would be alive, and sometimes he would come to visit, and he’d hug me as he used to. In addition, he surely would have married, so even if he’d died, I’d have his children who would grow up in his image.”
In the middle of the bailey, some peasant lads were playing in a mud puddle, and they looked no older than Edlyn’s sons. In fact, if Edlyn hadn’t specifically forbidden Allyn and Parkin to play outside, she would have thought they were her sons. One of them picked up a stick and challenged the other. They fought as if the sticks were swords, as busy and rambunctious as any two boys.
Edlyn’s hand crept to her heart. She didn’t want her sons to be knights. She wanted them to be monks, to be safe. But did she want this for their sake or for hers? Did she want this so she wouldn’t have to suffer the agony of knowing they were in battle and perhaps would never return to her?
If what Neda said was true, there would come a day when all their boyish fire would be quenched. All their love would be for God, and she’d never see Allyn’s face light up at the sight of her or feel the butt of Parkin’s head as he requested a hug in his own inarticulate way.
“We’ve got to go on, my lady. We’ll never get done at this rate, and the servants we’ve put off will imagine a slight when the ones we visited first hold it over their heads.” Neda went first as they picked their way across the mingled mounds of grass and slicks of mud. “As for the men we marry, they are indeed pork-brained. Your husband…well.”
If Neda was going to malign Hugh, then Edlyn knew she liked this lady. “What about my husband?”
“’Tis nothing, of course. Nothing more than any man would have done.” Neda walked a few more steps and burst out, “But would any woman have tried to throw the steward and his wife out, especially when the estate showed such obvious signs of tending, without first asking about their loyalties?”
Edlyn leaped to agree. “My thought exactly!”
“Burdett told me what would happen. I said not necessarily. If the new lord had intelligence-and I had investigated your husband, our lord, and from all accounts he was a canny man-he would retain us, or at least give us a chance.”
Edlyn egged her on. “What did Burdett say to that?”
Neda stopped in the middle of the bailey. “Burdett laughed at me. At me! We’ve been married thirty years, and he told me I was a foolish woman. What’s foolish about keeping on the experts to make money for you, I ask?”
“I tried to tell Hugh that.”
“And he didn’t listen, did he? Logic means nothing to these men. Only this cosmos of tangled loyalties had significance. And they say we’re irrational!”
Edlyn liked Neda more and more. “I had to stoop to a womanish appeal to get him to keep you.”
“Oh, my lady”—Neda grasped Edlyn’s hand—“I do thank you for that. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t helped us. I kissed his boot, but I know who was truly responsible. We will never fail you, I swear!”
“I know you won’t.” Edlyn returned Neda’s clasp firmly. “Although Hugh is worried about any lingering loyalty you might have to…Edmund Pembridge.”
Indeed, the way Hugh spoke of Pembridge, Edlyn feared for her own safety if he discovered she knew him. Why had she lied when Hugh asked if he had been a visitor at Robin’s home? It would have been easy enough to say aye. But then Hugh would have questioned her about him, and she would have had to admit that Pembridge had been Robin’s dearest friend.
His dearest friend and, if she had allowed it, his wife’s lover. Even now, her mind veered away from the memory of Pembridge’s admiration. He had composed poems to her beauty, sang about her grace, and, most dreadfully, praised her steadfast devotion to her husband while all the while his gaze had ridiculed her.
Pembridge, she thought, lived in a confusing welter of emotions. Love for Robin, love for her. Veneration for her fidelity, mockery every time Robin took another mistress. He had waited for her to fall into his arms, yet at the same time she knew he would have despised her for betraying Robin.
“Pembridge.” Neda invested scorn into the name, and Edlyn jumped with guilt. “Always out for his own profit. Never thinking of what would happen to his people if he supported Simon de Montfort and he lost.”
“Simon de Montfort hasn’t lost yet.” Like an aching tooth that disturbed Edlyn’s concentration again and again, the knowledge that this was only a temporary respite from the rebellion returned to her.
“The rumors say that his support among the barons has eroded.” Neda nodded wisely.
“Nevertheless, he’ll have to be finally defeated,” Edlyn said. To accomplish that, Hugh would have to return to battle, and Edlyn would be alone to fret and cry once more.
Only, she’d sworn not to love Hugh. She’d sworn she would never look in the mirror again and see her own eyes bleak with foreboding. She hadn’t broken her own vow yet.
Had she?
Neda said briskly, “But Pembridge has already lost this holding, and that loss must grate on him. This demesne is his primary source of income, and I expected him to protect us with a little more wisdom.”
Curiosity forced Edlyn to inquire, “He didn’t marry in the past year?”
“Nay. He didn’t want to marry, he said, although he indulged himself where he would.”
“’Twas his duty to marry and carry on his line.”
“He was a single-minded man. He wanted
who he wanted and no other, and I believe the one he wanted was unattainable. Although”—Neda shooed Edlyn toward the shelter of the blacksmith’s open-faced shop—“the last time he visited, he said he’d be bringing his wedded lady home within the year.”
Had Pembridge been watching her at the abbey, waiting until her time of mourning was over?
That was stupid. He wouldn’t have believed any one woman was worth so much trouble. Edlyn stilled the slight tremble in her hands. “Where is Pembridge now?”
“Chasing around after de Montfort, I suppose.”
Edlyn sighed in relief. She didn’t cherish the idea of Pembridge skulking in the forest, brooding over his dispossession. Brooding because he’d lost her.
Neda added, “Unless he’s regained his senses and gone to the prince to pledge his undying loyalty.”
“It’s too late for that.” Edlyn prayed it was so. “Hugh is in possession of this holding and of Pembridge’s title, and the prince wouldn’t be so foolish as to change his mind. He’d have Hugh in revolt then.”
Neda’s mouth quirked with a humor that flashed a previously unseen dimple in her cheek. “From what I’ve seen of your lord, that would indeed be foolhardy. Nay, Pembridge has lost Roxford, just as he deserved, and my husband will not hesitate to pledge his fealty to Lord Hugh.”
“I will so assure my lord. He’ll be pleased to know that.” She groaned as the realization struck her. “Oh, Neda, we’re going to have to organize a ceremony for Hugh’s vassals to swear fealty.”
“I can do that.”
Neda’s casual dismissal startled Edlyn. Every lord knew the importance of the ceremony of fidelity. Every vassal, every servant came to their lord, offered gifts, and swore before the priest and witnesses to support and obey their lord. Once that was done, any betrayal could be rewarded with condemnation and death.
Hugh worried Burdett would break faith with him, for despite the fact the prince had commanded Pembridge’s subjects to cleave to Hugh, some men took their own vows more seriously than the dictates of the prince. Hugh had no way of knowing if Burdett was one of those men.
A Knight to Remember: Good Knights #2 Page 22
